Farmers, Scientists Work To Find Organic Solution To Invasive Fly

Prices for organic produce are always a little higher. But lately you might have noticed you’re paying even more for berries. That’s partially because of a tiny fly called spotted wing drosophila. It’s a lot like an ordinary fruit fly, only it can lay its eggs inside a piece of fruit even before it starts to go bad.

Heather Leach walks along a row of 14-foot tall white tunnels that cover raspberry bushes at a farm in Coloma. She’s the graduate student assigned to this farm and two others as part of Michigan State University’s research program on spotted wing drosophila.

These tunnels or “high tunnels” look like greenhouses but have one or more sides open to the air.